Anne Rice - The witching hour

Aaron was allowed in to see him for five minutes during every hour. At some point Aunt Vivian was there too. And then Ryan came.

Various faces appeared over his bed; different voices spoke to him. It was daylight again when the doctor explained that the weakness he felt was to be expected. The good news was that he had sustained relatively little damage to the heart muscle; in fact he was already recovering. They would keep him on the regulating drugs, and the blood thinners, and the drugs that dissolved the cholesterol. Rest and heal were the last words he heard as he went under again.

It must have been New Year’s Eve that they finally explained things to him. By then the medication had been reduced and he was able to follow what they were saying.

There’d been no one on the premises when the fire engine arrived. Just the alarm screaming. Not only had the glass protectors gone off, but somebody had pushed the auxiliary buttons for fire, police, and medical emergency. Rushing through the gate and back the side path, the fire fighters had immediately spotted the broken glass outside the open French doors, the overturned furniture on the veranda, and the blood on the flagstones. Then they spotted the dark shape floating just beneath the surface of the swimming pool.

Aaron had arrived about the time they were bringing Michael around. So had the police. They had searched the house, but could find no one. There was unexplained blood in the house, and evidence of some sort of fire. Closets and drawers were open upstairs, and a half-packed suitcase was open on the bed. But there was no other evidence of a struggle.

It was Ryan who determined, later that same afternoon, that Rowan’s Mercedes convertible was gone, and that her purse and any and all identification were also gone. No one could find her medical bag, though the cousins were sure they had seen such a thing.

In the absence of any coherent explanation of what had happened, the family was thrown into a panic. It was too soon to report Rowan as a missing person, nevertheless police began an unofficial search. Her car was found in the airport parking garage before midnight, and it was soon confirmed that she had purchased two tickets to New York earlier that afternoon, and that her plane had safely landed on schedule. A clerk remembered her, and that she’d been traveling with a tall man. The stewardesses remembered both parties, and that they were talking and drinking during the entire flight. There was no evidence of coercion or foul play. The family could do nothing but wait for Rowan to contact them, or for Michael to explain what had happened.

Three days later, on December 29, a wire had been received from Rowan from Switzerland, in which she explained that she would be in Europe for some time and instructions regarding her personal affairs would follow. The wire contained one of a series of code words known only to the designee of the legacy and the firm of Mayfair and Mayfair. And this confirmed to the satisfaction of everyone involved that the wire had indeed come from Rowan. Instructions were received the same day for a substantial transfer of funds to a bank in Zurich. Once again the correct code words were used. Mayfair and Mayfair had no grounds for questioning Rowan’s instructions.

On January 6, when Michael was moved out of the critical care unit into a regular private room, Ryan came to visit, apparently extremely confused and uncomfortable about the messages he had to relay. He was as tactful as possible.

Rowan would be gone “indefinitely.” Her specific whereabouts were not known, but she had been in frequent touch with Mayfair and Mayfair through a law firm in Paris.

Complete ownership of the First Street house was to be given to Michael. No one in the family was to challenge his full and exclusive right to the property. It was to remain in his hands, and his hands only, until the day he died, at which time it would revert-according to law-to the legacy.

As for Michael’s living expenses, he was to have carte blanche to the full extent that Rowan’s resources allowed. In other words, he was to have all the money he wanted or ever asked for, without specified limit.

Michael said nothing when he heard this.

Ryan assured him that he was there to see to Michael’s smallest wish, that Rowan’s instructions were lengthy and explicit, and that Mayfair and Mayfair was prepared to carry them out to the smallest detail. Whenever Michael was ready to go home, every preparation would be made for his comfort.

He didn’t even hear most of what Ryan was saying to him. There was no need really to explain to Ryan, or anyone else, the full irony of this turn of events, or how his thoughts were running, day in and day out, in a druggy haze, over all the events and turns of his life from the time of his earliest memories.

When he closed his eyes, he saw them all again, in the flames and the smoke, the Mayfair Witches. He heard the beat of the drums, and he smelled the stench of the flames, and he heard Stella’s piercing laughter.

Then it would slip away.

The quiet would return, and he would be back in his early childhood, walking up First Street that long-ago Mardi Gras night with his mother, thinking, Ah, what a beautiful house.

Some time later, when Ryan had stopped talking and sat patiently in the room merely studying Michael, a load of questions obviously crowding Ryan’s brain, all of which he was afraid to voice, Michael asked if the family hated his being in the house. If they wanted him to relinquish it.

Ryan explained that they did not hate it at all. That they hoped Michael would live in the house. That they hoped Rowan would return, that some sort of reconciliation could be effected. And then Ryan seemed at a loss. Embarrassed and obviously deeply distressed, he said in a raw voice that the family “just couldn’t understand what had happened.”

A number of possible responses ran through Michael’s mind. From a cool distance, he imagined himself making mysterious remarks that would richly feed the old family legends; obscure allusions to the thirteen and to the door, and to “the man”; remarks that would be discussed for years to come perhaps, on lawns and at dinners, and in funeral parlors. But it was really unthinkable to do that. In fact, it was absolutely crucial to remain silent.

Then he heard himself say, with extraordinary conviction, “Rowan will come back.” And he didn’t say anything after that.

Early the next day, when Ryan came again, Michael did make one request-that his Aunt Vivian move into the house, if she wanted to. He didn’t see any reason now for her to be alone in her apartment on the avenue. And if Aaron could be his guest at the house, that too would make him happy.

Ryan went into a long-drawn-out lawyerly confirmation that the house was Michael’s house, and that Michael need ask no one’s permission or approval to implement his smallest or greatest wish with regard to things at First Street. To this Ryan added his own deepest concern that Michael call upon him for “absolutely anything.”

Finally in the silence which ensued, Ryan broke down. He said he couldn’t understand where he and the family had failed Rowan. Rowan had begun shifting enormous sums of money out of their hands. The plans for Mayfair Medical had been put on hold. He simply couldn’t understand what had happened.

Michael said, “It wasn’t your fault. You had nothing to do with it.” And after a long time, during which Ryan sat there, apparently ashamed of his outburst, and looking confused and defeated, Michael said again: “She’ll come back. You wait and see. It isn’t over.”

On February 10, Michael was released from the hospital. He was still very weak, which was frustrating to him, but his heart muscle had showed remarkable improvement. His overall health was good. He rode uptown in a black limousine with Aaron.